GLIB.COM

R. Paul Martin's Web Site

Welcome to my home page. I've opted to keep the graphics to a minimum so you don't have to wait forever for this page to load.

I will, however, give you this following graphic because it's so damned important.

For most of my life I've been a staunch advocate of what some of us like to call “free speech.” When I first got on line in 1985, I was on various computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). I saw the free speech potential there and likened the BBS to the old medium of the “Broadside,” which was a poster, usually very political, used by people like Tom Paine and other colonists who wanted to be free of England. With the explosion of the Internet, and especially of the World Wide Web, this potential has been greatly expanded.

Unfortunately, there are those who dislike free speech. And they have been assaulting the Web for years now, usually claiming to be protecting children. They trotted out the “Communications Decency Act of 1996,” and other, similar legislation since then. In other countries filtering software has been used to restrict access to entire nations of Web sites. I oppose these measures and these people, and others oppose them. The price of free speech is eternal vigilance.

If you want to see some older statements of mine about these issues look here.

One very important victory for free speech on the Internet was won some years ago, and I think we should always keep it in mind. So I give you the graphic link below.

I do a radio program called Back of the Book, which airs on alternate Saturday mornings at 5:00 AM on WBAI-FM 99.5 on your FM dial, broadcasting with 50,000 Watts of effective radiated power from the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.